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Objective To investigate the effects of adipocyte plasma membrane-associated protein (APMAP) over-expression on glomerular podocyte injury in adriamycin (ADR) nephropathy. Methods The rat model of adriamycin nephropathy was constructed by tail vein injection of adriamycin, the expression of APMAP and NF-κB p65 in renal tissue was measured by immunohistochemistry. A mouse glomerular podocytes MPC-5 cell line with APMAP gene over-expression was constructed, then podocyocytes injury model was induced by 0.5 μmol/L ADR and treated with NF-κB signaling pathway activator CU-T12-9. The proliferation of cells was checked by CCK-8. The activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was determined by ELISA. The apoptosis of podocytes was determined by flow cytometry. Western blot was used to detect protein expressions of NF-κB p65, p-NF-κB p65 and TNF-α. Results APMAP was expressed in kidney tissue of doxorubicin nephropathy rats at a low level, while NF-κB p65 was significantly high expressed (P＜0.05). Over-expression of APMAP increased proliferation of MPC-5 cells and decreased LDH activity, apoptosis rate, and also down-regulated protein expression of NF-κB p65, P-NF-κB p65 and TNF-α under ADR exposure (P＜0.05). However, combined treatment with CU-T12-9 significantly inhibited the ameliorative effect of APMAP over-expression on the damage of MPC-5 cells exposed to ADR. Conclusions The over-expression of APMAP can inhibit ADR-induced glomerular podocyte injury, and its mechanism might be related to the inhibition of NF-κB signaling pathway.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major complication in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. Previous studies have demonstrated that platelet distribution width (PDW) is associated with cardiovascular events in hemodialysis (HD) patients. In this study, we hypothesized that elevated PDW can predict all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in PD patients. We recruited PD patients for a single-center retrospective cohort study from 1 January 2007, to 30 June 2020. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were made to determine the PDW cutoff value for predicting all-cause mortality. The propensity score matching (PSM) method was used to improve the equilibrium between groups. The relation of PDW with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was analyzed by Cox proportional hazards models. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) models were used to determine whether there was a linear relationship between PDW and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. A total of 720 PD patients were screened, and 426 PD patients were enrolled after PSM. After adjusting for confounders, Cox proportional hazards models showed that the PDW value was positively correlated with the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality (HR = 1.162, 95% CI 1.057–1.278, p = 0.002 and HR = 1.200, 95% CI 1.041–1.382, p = 0.012). The adjusted RCS analysis further showed that the relationship of PDW with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was linear (p for nonlinearly = 0.143 and 0.062). Elevated PDW is independently associated with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in PD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the fermentation process of dehulled flaxseed fermented milk was optimized by single factor test and response surface method, and its storage stability was studied by using dehulled flaxseed pure milk and whole milk as the main raw materials. The results showed that the optimum preparation conditions of solidified dehulled flaxseed fermented milk were as follows: the volume ratio of dehulled flaxseed pure mike Lo whole milk was 3:7, the sucrose addition was 74 g/L, the fermentation agent was 2. 3 g/L, the β-cyclodextrin addition was 2.0 g/L, the fermentation temperature was 42 °C, the fermentation time was 8 h. In addition, under the optimized conditions, the titratable acidity of fermented milk after 21 days of storage was 84 °T, pH 4. 3, water holding capacity was 84. 03%, viable count was 2.44 x 108 CFU/g, hardness was 1.07 N, elasticity was 0.63 mm, chewiness was 0.45 N, viscosity was 0.71 N, cohesiveness was 0.66. The coagulated fermented milk was milky while in color, uniform in texture, no whey precipitation, had the aroma of flaxseed and good stability. The results provided research ideas and data reference for the fermentation process and storage characteristics evaluation of plant-based fermented milk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Speech therapy has been widely used as an essential therapy for compensatory articulation errors in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. We sought to identify potential biomarkers of nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate children after speech rehabilitation based on resting-state fMRI and graph theory techniques. We scanned 28 nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate and 28 typically developing children for resting-state fMRI on a 3T MRI scanner. Functional networks were constructed, and their topological properties were obtained for assessing between-group differences (two-sample t-tests). Also, language clear degree scale scores were obtained for correlation analysis with the topological features in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. Significant between-group differences of local properties were detected in brain regions involved in higher-order language and social cognition. There were no significant correlations between topological feature differences and language clear degree scale scores in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. Graph theory provided valuable insight into the neurobiological mechanisms of speech rehabilitation in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. The global network features, small-world index, nodal clustering coefficient, and nodal shortest path length may represent potential imaging biomarkers for the estimation of effective speech rehabilitation.

The operation parameters for the supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO2) evaporation method greatly affect the properties of the prepared drug-loaded micelles. In this study, the effects of those key parameters on the drug-loading content (LC) and drug entrapment efficiency (EE) are discussed. It is observed that EE and LC of the micelles are slightly increased with the enhancing temperature and the copolymer molecular ratio of hydrophilic/hydrophobic segment, while decreased with the enhancing ScCO2 evaporation rate. The pressure and volume ratio of ScCO2 to H2O are observed the optimum condition. In addition, the verification experiment is carried out under the obtained optimizing parameters. The prepared micelles exhibit relatively regular spherical shape and narrow size distribution with the EE and LC value of 70.7% and 14.1%, respectively.